AboutHealthTransparency.org

A paper released today, as reported in Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, discusses how Pay-for-performance (P4P) and public quality-reporting programs can increase the quality of health care for the services being measured, but notes that these programs can unintentionally exacerbate racial and ethnic health disparities if they are not designed with attention to these issues. The authors (Lawrence Casalino, an assistant professor of health studies at the University of Chicago, and Arthur Elster, director of the medicine and public health division at the American Medical Association) describe how these programs could lead to increased disparities, and they suggest ways to prevent adding to disparities and, in some cases, how to reduce them.